Perilous Delivery

Chapter 5

Who are you?

The following days were mostly normal. Caleb was receiving an unusual number of orders that would make special requests at the end. Always when he was almost finished shopping, and always really weird items that seemed to random to him. He was also getting more and more orders from various people, and then when he would deliver they would be confused and say that they hadn’t ordered anything. He would show that their name and address was on his system, and most of them would eventually accept the orders. It was so weird, but like I said, these were high-paying jobs, so he wasn’t going to pass them up on account of a little amnesia.

Meanwhile, at home, Stella was always growling and barking at random corners, but only when Caleb would come home from work. Most of the time she was very good, yet every day when he came home, she would want to go outside, and then she would bark and growl at the car until Caleb got her inside again, after which point she would be okay, for the most part, every so often getting agitated.

Pedro and Macrina were also starting to act strangely. They were suddenly always talking about being afraid of “the white lady.” They both described the same thing. Vanessa was starting to feel concern, and both she and Caleb were having trouble sleeping. Not every night mind you, but at least every third night, they would both be woken up, having had disturbing dreams.

On a Friday, Caleb was exhausted from a night of restlessness, and a week of hard work delivering, and deliveries were a hard job with which to pay the bills, so he was having to work more hours.

He looked at his app, he couldn’t believe his eyes, an order for $100. “No way!” He blurted out, as he grabbed it, not bothering to check the name or address. This order required him to go to the Big Save on 119, pick up about ten items, random things too, a candy bar, pop-corn, a frozen pizza, a 2L soda, and some trash bags. He was delighted, the whole shopping experience lasted about 20 minutes. Frankly, it wouldn’t have taken even that long except that Big Save did not put the aisle numbers on the Shopperhelp app. So, he had to find everything on his own, and he rarely shopped at this particular store, so he didn’t know it very well.

When he arrived at the house, it was a large, beige house that was in the middle of a cul de sac off of 122nd Place in Vancouver. He walked up to the door and began unloading the few items onto the front porch. The door opened and a large, bald man with a pot-belly stepped out.

“Something I can do for you?” The man asked.

“Nope, just delivering your groceries.” Replied Caleb, his heart sinking as he was thinking that he had known this order seemed too good to be real.

“I didn’t order groceries,” the man replied with a tone that conveyed the essence of shortness, “maybe you have the wrong address?”

Caleb looked at his app, then rattled off the address featured, and the name, “Rebekah Foster”. The bald man scratched his chin a moment, then said, “That’s my daughter, hold on.”

Then Caleb could hear yelling, “Becks, did you order some groceries on the app?” Then the reply, “No dad!” And with that the king-pin looking man returned, and seemed to look down at Caleb.

“Son,” he said, with no effort to conceal his irritation, “We didn’t order anything.”

Caleb showed him the app. He scratched his bald head, then shrugged and took the items.

“Free pizza I guess.” He said, and walked inside his home.

It was getting late anyway, and Caleb was feeling like heading home. Then he got another order he couldn’t bring himself to pass up. It was another $50 one, and this time it would be even easier, since this was actually on his other app, the restaurant delivery app. It was an order from Arthurian Pizza that was going to a hotel near the Vancouver Mall. The pizza was a pretty normal one, just a large veggie-lovers with added sausage. Actually, it sounded awesome, although, there was one odd detail, that was the fact that they ordered it with pesto instead of regular pizza sauce. But lots of people liked that, so he didn’t think much of it.

It was pretty dark now. He was just pulling into the Arthurian Pizza’s parking lot. As he turned, his headlights illuminated a woman, standing with her back to the road, right in the entry to the parking lot. Caleb slammed on his brakes. The person behind him honked.

He had slammed his brakes and stopped so hard, that his head had lunged forward. Then he looked back up, and there was no one. Just an empty side-walk. He looked around, trying to see if he could discern the woman. She was nowhere to be seen. Then the guy behind him honked again, and he heard him yelling, “Come on man!” Caleb pulled into the parking lot, and the guy continued West on Van Mall, going away from the mall. He was glaring at Caleb as he passed.

“Impatient jerk.” Caleb said under his breath, with a scowl. Nevertheless, he had to move on. He walked into the restaurant. He told them the name on his order, and they gave it to him. It was pretty normal.

Caleb pulled around just a couple miles and was quickly at the hotel. He was able to walk up to the room, room 309, and he delivered the pizza. When he did, the person in the room opened the door. “Can I help you?”

“Pizza delivery for Steve.”

The guy took it, and looked at it quizzically. Then looked at the receipt and said, “Wait, is this a joke?”

“What’s wrong?” Caleb asked, startled.

“First off,” Steve launched off, “I didn’t order a damn pizza. Second, how the hell did you know her favorite?”

“Whose favorite?”

“Every time I was in town, Amy and I would order a large veg lovers with pesto and sausage added from Arthurian.”

“Who is Amy?” Caleb looked with a quizzical expression.

“My kid sister.” The man replied.

“Do you think she ordered this for you?” Caleb asked, “You know, something nice for you to think of her?”

The guy glared at Caleb, “She would have to do that from the grave. She died last year… in a car accident.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Ugh, whatever, I don’t want this Pie.” He handed the Pizza back to Caleb. Then slammed the door.

“What the…” Caleb asked to himself. Then walked down the hall. This hotel was strangely quiet, and the hallway felt cold. Come to think of it, he had felt cold almost all day. He got to the elevator, and waited for the elevator to arrive on the floor he was on. When it arrived, he walked in, and pressed the button for the lobby. The elevator door just stayed open. It didn’t go anywhere. He kept pressing the “Close-door button” but nothing happened.

Finally, he decided to just take the stairs. He walked all the way down the hall, again, as the stairs were opposite the elevator in the hallway. In doing so, he passed room 309. It was extremely cold there. And inside the room, the man he had just been talking to sounded like he was moving things around, and gargling water or something. Caleb got a really sick feeling, and started moving faster. He got to the staircase, then walked down to the bottom, where there was actually an exit door right at the stairs. He opted to take that exit, and walk around to his car. Then he drove away.

He called the support line for the restaurant delivery app to report that the customer had asked not to receive their food. The young man on the other end of the call was very helpful. He said that the food had been ordered by a third party, and then he tried to call the number provided. Thus leaving Caleb on hold.

When he came back, he told Caleb that the person had stated that they didn’t want a refund, but that Caleb could just keep the pizza for all they cared.

Caleb thanked the guy on the phone, and then Called Vanessa to let her know that he had gotten a pizza. She was surprised because she had made dinner. Caleb told her what happened, and said that they could just warm the pizza for breakfast or something. She laughed and said okay. But they both noted how weird the whole situation was.

They ate together, Vanessa had made delicious fish tacos for their dinner. She had even gotten lime to sprits on the fish-tacos. Which were themselves comprised of halibut, with lettuce, tomato, some tartar sauce, and seasoning.

That night, everyone was tired. So, they decided to have a quiet evening. Pedro and Macrina put on an old Godzilla movie from the 60’s, and watched it in the living-room. Pedro loved the old Godzilla movies, and Caleb had grown up watching them, so he thought it was the coolest thing that he had passed on his love for the King of kaiju to his son.

Pedro had a Godzilla action figure that he was playing with while watching the movie. Macrina just wanted to sit with her little brother and watch the movie. Vanessa rested her head on Caleb’s shoulder while they watched the movie.

The following day was Saturday, and they all slept in to start. They were planning to have a lazy afternoon anyway. However, while Vanessa was sleeping in, she had a dream.

She was walking through a field in spring, surrounded by beautiful flowers, and wearing a lovely yellow dress with spaghetti straps. Then, a woman whom she had never seen before was in the field. The woman was slender, and pretty, but with very pale skin. She walked over to the woman, and the woman looked her up and down.

“Who are you?” Asked Vanessa, who had a sense that something wasn’t right about this woman.

“You’re about to know a lot about who I am hunny.” Replied the slender woman with black hair and blue eyes, “In fact, I’m a part of your life now.”

“Why are you here?” Vanessa was used to having vivid dreams, and she could always tell when she was dreaming, so she readily discerned that this was a dream, and yet, she hadn’t placed this woman there…

“I can see why he’s so attached to you…” Replied the woman, ignoring the question as she walked around Vanessa. She tugged at the strap of her dress, “You are a pretty little thing.”

“Wait,” Vanessa was becoming confused, “What are you talking about?” she asked, as she jerked away from the woman’s cold, clammy hand.

“Oh,” the woman replied with a laugh, “I guess he didn’t tell you. Well, why would he. A few nights ago I came to him, in the night that is, but don’t worry, he was all yours. It makes me curious really…”

Vanessa looked around, the woman seemed to be gone. Suddenly the sunny field seemed drab, and cold. When Vanessa looked down she realized that she was now completely naked. Then the woman was back, wearing the same yellow dress she had been.

“Hmm,” she said with a twirl, “I guess I see it, the dress doesn’t fit me like you. Something in the curves. Tell me, did you always have a figure like this, or did you fill out when you became a mother?”

Vanessa tried to cover herself, feeling embarrassed. She also balked at the question and said, “What? Who…”

“Touchy, touchy,” replied the woman. Who was now behind Vanessa and placed a hand on her shoulder, “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to see what has him so committed. I can tell you right now that if daddy had been as committed to mom as this man is to you, everything might have been different for me.”

Vanessa felt uncomfortable with all of this, she pulled her shoulder away from the cold, clammy, and strangely rough hands of this bizarre intruder into her dream, and spun around to face her.

“Stop it!” Vanessa now shouted, “Tell me who you are.”

“hmmm,” the woman leaned in close to Vanessa, then softly and eerily whispered into her ear, “You really want to know don’t you?”

“For crying out loud!” The very frustrated and flustered Vanessa sputtered out, forgetting that she was naked she clenched her fists and swung them in a gesture of annoyance while stomping her bare foot on the soft grass of her dreamy landscape, “Who or what are you? Why can’t I get rid of you from my dream?”

“Ahh, yes,” breathed out the woman, leaning in again, and whispering into Vanessa’s ear “I’m not a dream, and you can’t get rid of me.” Her breath was so cold on Vanessa’s neck. It sent a chill down her spine and all through her body, which now had visible goosebumps.

“Wait…” Vanessa began to respond as she rubbed her arms, trying to keep herself warm. But before she could say anything, the woman’s icy hand reached out and grabbed her left arm, just below the shoulder.

“I’ll show you exactly who I am,” The woman said in a voice that sounded almost snake-like.

Suddenly vanessa felt like she was falling. Suddenly she was wearing a long but uncomfortable shirt that seemed to chafe against her skin with a material similar to a bag for potatoes. Besides the shirt, she was still naked.

She looked around and she was in what looked like a little girl’s bedroom,. There was a little girl with black hair sitting in bed, the girl was about twelve years old.

As she was looking at the little girl, she seemed to radiate sadness. Then a woman walked into the room, she said something about the little girl’s father, that he had gone off to be with some woman that he met online. The woman seemed to fade away, and time seemed to flow on. A man would come to visit the girl sometimes, and she would visit him, he was always eating chips and cheese puffs, and was a slob. His new woman was extremely unhappy as they would fight a lot, and she had two daughters of her own. They were unkempt and ill-mannered children who were clearly very unpleasant.

Vanessa felt like she was being tugged and dragged by an invisible force from location and event to location and event. She looked down at her wrists, they were tied together, and there was a rope that would pull her whenever it was time to enter the next setting, but she could not pull away. It was like she was no longer dreaming, but rather reliving the strange memories of a bitter soul as they recounted every disaster. She was becoming more exhausted with each transition.

She now saw the same girl, now possible thirteen. Her mother now had a string of boyfriends. They were doing drugs, having parties, and the poor little girl was mostly forgotten about by both parents. The only bright spot in the girl’s life was an older brother, who, although irritable, did seem to care about her. However, he was usually gone, he worked for a company that sold some kind of medical equipment, and had to travel all the time.

Whenever he was in town, Amanda’s brother would allow her to stay with him, in whatever hotel he was in. They would order a veggie lover’s pizza with sausage and pesto and watch movies together.

Then, Vanessa saw as sometimes the men who were there for Amanda’s mother would come and visit her. They would often talk to her and even touch her in ways that made her extremely uncomfortable. It was clear to Vanessa that this poor girl’s life was disturbing. Then, Vanessa was flung into another memory, this thirteen year old girl walking into the kitchen to get a glass of water, her mother checked out on the couch. Probably drunk, possibly something else. Then, a large burley man walked over to where Amanda was in the kitchen.

“Your momma didn’t tell me she was hiding a pretty thing like you here.” The man retorted, blocking the exit to the kitchen with his body, “How old are you?”

“I’m thirteen.” Amanda said, with an annoyed tone.

“Oh yeah,” the man said, “You know, your mom didn’t pay me for the… for a little transaction we just made.”

Amanda looked around the man, and saw her knocked out mother. “Okay.” She said, “And...”

The big man grinned, then he grabbed the girl and said, “You can settle the debt.” He shoved her onto the counter top. Poor Amanda screamed bloody murder, and called for her mother, but her mother just giggled and rolled around on the couch, high off her rocker. Meanwhile the man did all manner of evil.

The next day, Amanda sat in her room crying. She tried to call her dad, but he just told her he didn’t want anything to do with what had happened. She called her brother, and he told her what had happened. He was more compassionate to her, and said that he wished he could have been there. However, he clearly didn’t know what to do in a situation like this, and was no real help in the poor girl’s suffering.

After that, the rope pulled again, it seemed to first drag Vanessa, and then seemed to have enough force to lift her up, and she was practically flying for a moment before she found herself plunged back into that same room from before. Now, she was on her knees, not wanting to stand up anymore from the mix of exhaustion and fear of the next transition.

The little girl’s room was different now. It had a lot of dark artwork, perfectly normal for a teen. But it also had a computer, and the teen Amanda was sitting at the computer. Vanessa began to stand up, curious what she was looking at. As she did though, the Amanda from the onset of the dream walked over and pushed her to the floor.

“Nope, sorry,” She said with an evil grin, “That’s a trade secret. But I did bring you here for a reason. That’s me learning all about witchcraft.”

“About what?” Asked Vanessa, her jaw dropping.

“You heard me beautiful.” Amanda replied, grapping Vanessa by the chin and squeezing her golden brown cheeks, which puffed out her full lips, “I learned all about Ouija boards, seances, summoning, and then I graduated to the hard core things. I quickly learned that all those things are just what perfect Church girls like you do when they don’t like daddy anymore and want to get feathers ruffled. No, I moved on, and I learned how I could finally take control.”

She let go of Vanessa, then grabbed the rope and yanked. The room spun about, and next thing Vanessa knew, the memory of Amanda was about 18 or 19, and there was a young boy in the picture.

The boy was tall, white, and chubby, with blonde hair and green eyes.

Vanessa was covered in sweat as she collapsed.

“Please,” she sighed, “Why are you doing this?”

“You asked who I am.” Amanda replied, pulling Vanessa’s head back, “Now I’m showing you exactly who I am.” She then shoved Vanessa’s head back down.

“Now,” Amanda continued, walking around the memory, “What I learned was how I could become something more. I could finally take control, it would just require a sacrifice. This poor sap was lonely. I found him out, and started dating him. I convinced him to take me in, and then I really started my rituals. Until finally, I succeeded…”

With that Vanessa felt ripped forward again, this time was thrown into a puddle in the road. She was cold, and wet from pouring rain. She saw a very young woman standing in the nearby woods. Then a car came barreling around the corner, Amanda walked up next to Vanessa.

“There, there,” she said mockingly, rubbing Vanessa’s arm as if to warm her up, though in reality her cold dead hands only made the chill worse. Then she leaned in and whispered into Vanessa’s wet and chilled ear, “I was cold that night too. I called Jonas, uh, my boyfriend, I told him I needed him home right away. I drove so fast, and it was so dark that night. I waited there, in that very corner, and then, when I saw him coming…”

“How on earth did you know it was him?” Vanessa asked through chattering teeth as she shook in the cold.

“You’ll see.” Came the chilling reply.

Suddenly, as the headlights came into the memory Amanda’s view, they luminated a large, grinning demon. Amanda looked up at the demon and it looked at her and whispered, “now child” then she was suddenly in the road, and the little silver Chevy slapped into her, as the driver slammed his brakes.

Jonas sat in the seat for a moment, and Vanessa watched as a ghostly apparition came up out of the corpse of the slain woman, now also grinning. It crawled over to the very car that had just slammed into her body. The boy was paralyzed with fear, guilt, and shock.

Then, it was like he suddenly realized that the person he had hit may need help, and he turned to open his door, but when he did, he saw Amanda looking back at him. She slapped the window with her ghostly arm having the same appearance as the snapped arm of the corpse on the ground. She kept slapping the window, Jonas became terrified and covered his face. Then the window shattered. Amanda reached into the car and grabbed the hair of the chubby boy, then slammed his face onto the dashboard, the impact dazed him and his hands drooped sullenly, then she pulled him back and slammed his throat on the steering wheel. She slammed his throat so hard that it crushed his windpipe.

Jonas looked up into her eyes. His green eyes widened and scared as he was choking. She grinned, then she opened his glove compartment and pulled out a small Swiss Army knife that he had in it for emergencies.

“Oh honey,” She said, pulling the blade open, and running her ghostly fingers along it, “You haven’t been sharpening this. Tisk, tisk.”

Then she took the dull blade and stabbed the boy in the lower part of his neck on the left side, so that his blood spurted out. Then she pulled the knife out of his throat and tossed it into the passenger floor.

Jonas tried to crawl out of the car onto the road, holding his neck with his left hand as blood spurted out, but before too long, he collapsed onto the road, eyes wide with fear as he died beside his car.

Then Amanda walked away from the corpse of her now deceased boyfriend, and came over to Vanessa.

“Oh,” She said jokingly, “You’re still here, you can go home now… just make sure your husband doesn’t do anything to get in my way, and you won’t have to see anyone you care about end up like… that. Bye now pretty girl.” Then she shoved Vanessa hard on the chest, and Vanessa fell down the small hill into the puddle of rainwater beside the country road with a splash.

In that moment she finally woke up. She was drenched in sweat when she did. She went to the shower and turned the water on very hot. She removed her pajamas to get into the shower, and she noticed that on her chest was a bruise, and her arms had the distinct marks of having been grabbed, even her wrists had the faint impression of rope marks.

As she looked at these marks all over her upper body in the mirror, she suddenly saw Amanda, from her dream, in the mirror, standing behind her. She spun around, but there was no one there.

Vanessa stepped into the shower and cried quietly.

Stay tuned for Chapter 6.